There have been homeless camps underneath the Washington Avenue bridge over the Esopus Creek, Kingston, N.Y.
File photo by Tony Adamis

Homelessness in the eight-county Hudson Valley region was 6.7 percent higher in January 2017 than a year earlier, and it surged 25.3 percent in Ulster County alone, according to the latest statistics issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Ulster County homelessness rose from 328 persons in January 2016 to 411 persons in January 2017.

In Dutchess County, homelessness rose from 363 to 388, a 6.8 percent increase, and in Columbia and Greene counties, collective homelessness rose from 116 to 144, a 24.1 percent increase.

The annual report to Congress — covering the counties of Ulster, Dutchess, Columbia, Greene, Sullivan, Orange, Rockland and Westchester — also found a 23.3 percent increase in unsheltered, or “street,” homelessness in the region; a 0.5 percent increase in chronic or long-term homelessness; and an 11.2 percent increase in family homelessness.

Advertisement

Homelessness among veterans fell 8 percent.

Hudson River Housing, headquartered in Poughkeepsie, operates the only homeless shelter in Dutchess County — the Webster House in Poughkeepsie — and its executive director, Christa Hines, said that 60-bed facility is full every night and that, often, her agency must send homeless people to facilities in other areas.

What is needed, she said, is additional federal money to fund more permanent housing opportunities.

“What we really need is more permanent affordable housing,” Hines said. “We don’t want any more shelters; it’s not an ideal situation for folks. So we definitely want to be building more or retrofitting existing spaces for affordable housing for the very low-income people.”

Hudson River Housing recently received a financial award from the New York Housing Conference to retrofitt the Poughkeepsie Underwear Factory building into 15 residential units and 7,000 square feet of commercial space. The entire building is occupied.